Development of signal processing algorithms via functional programming

Motivated by recent advances made in VLSI and VLSI-based systems, we describe the functional programming(FP) style as proposed by Backus [1]. Comparative studies are made by coding simple algorithms in a conventional language and in FP. We find that the methodologies involved in the two approaches are different; conventional languages require thinking at an object level while FP styles favour a more hierarchical formalization. The paper also discusses some limitations of FP styles that will have to be remedied.